The roadmap towards a treaty – that comes with no timeline and a budget of $300 million for a ‘Path to Treaty’ fund – was unveiled in front of business and community leaders, with Palaszczuk declaring her government was “serious and we are determined” to deliver on the commitment.

At least $10 million of the fund will be spent each year on a First Nations Treaty Institute, still to have its powers, functions and composition outlined.

The process will also feature a five-member Truth Telling and Healing Inquiry, which the premier described as resembling a commission of inquiry, but customised to have a culturally appropriate, non-adversarial approach.

An interim truth and treaty body would co-design the Path to Treaty legislation and the establishment of a path to treaty office, government treaty readiness committee and ministerial consultative committee to build capacity across government agencies.

Palaszczuk said the journey ahead was not for the timid.

“But each generation is called to face its challenge and its opportunity,” she said.

“I believe this is ours. We have the chance to finish unfinished business. To put wrongs right.

“To finally come together as one, united State, with mutual respect and absolute dignity for our diverse cultures and identities.”

Palaszczuk said Queensland, like all Australian states need to confront its past to move into the future, referencing Brisbane’s Olympic Games in 2032 as a major international event when the stories of Aboriginal people and culture would be showcased to the world.

“For tens of thousands of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have told their stories,” she said.

“The process of ‘truth telling’ is a way for us to use story – to deeply understand our past, to acknowledge the enormous hurt, pain and suffering but, most importantly to build a better future together.

“It is important to acknowledge that we have been brought to this moment only because we have been carried on the backs and shoulders of giants too numerous for me to mention today.

“There are also those whose names history may not record. But we must never forget all the aunties and uncles, the cousins and families.

“The countless thousands removed from their homes and subjected to innumerable cruelties. Stolen wages. Forced adoptions. Deaths. These people are gone. But their stories remain.”

Palaszczuk said the idea of a treaty with Australia’s original inhabitants was not new, and had been raised at intervals throughout the nation’s history.

“George Arthur, Governor of Tasmania, begged the then Colonial Office to establish treaties. It was ‘a fatal error’ he said not to have one. He was ignored,” she said.

“When John Batman first settled at Port Phillip, he made an attempt to buy the land from Aboriginal people. The NSW Governor quashed it in October 1835.

“In 1836, Colonel PC Irwin of the Swan River colony that became Perth said ‘treaties should be negotiated between the parties as a measure of healing and pacification’. He too was ignored.

“Treaties have been established over centuries and provide people of those nations, like New Zealand, a shared sense of identity and pride that we should have too.

“But all efforts to establish one in this country have died in a desert of ignorance and indifference where they have stayed for more than 200 years.

“Well I am here to tell you, friends, that ends now.”